


Choices

by sunflower_swan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Ginny saves the day, Hogwarts Sixth Year, POV Draco Malfoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:06:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28142094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflower_swan/pseuds/sunflower_swan
Summary: The mission from the Dark Lord is not going well and Potter haunts his shadow. What will Draco do when he has nothing left to lose?
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7
Collections: HN Siriusly Amazing Writing Challenge





	Choices

**Author's Note:**

> Hermione's Nook (Facebook) Siriusly Amazing Writing Challenge  
> Prompt: "Shh, it's alright," the villain said. "You're doing beautifully and I'm so proud of you. But that's enough now. It was cruel of them to make you fight me -- you could never have won. It's not your fault."
> 
> Underlined text is a direct quote from Half-Blood Prince.
> 
> Beta shout-out to ladyedwina!!

**"Choices are the hinges of destiny." -Edwin Markham**

Generations of hidden contraband towered around Draco. No light entered through the high gothic windows, the weather outside being typical of a dreary Highland Spring day. As such, the candles atop ornate pillars cast eerie, flickering shadows in the cathedral-sized room.

Draco squatted and covered his face with trembling hands. It was all pointless. Hopeless. He had been working on this bloody cabinet for months, getting nowhere fast. The necklace and mead -- last-ditch efforts of a desperate man -- failed as well.

Lowering his hands and rising to a standing position, he glared at the busted Vanishing Cabinet, daring it to do something other than stand there, useless. Then in a fit of rage, he seized random objects from the prodigious piles surrounding him and flung them haphazardly around the room. This went on until the area was littered with broken junk. Draco let loose an enraged cry and sank to the floor. He was a failure and belonged here on the floor with the rest of the discarded rubbish.

Wiping a tear from his cheek, he pulled back the sleeve of his left arm. The Dark Mark, in stark contrast to his otherwise pale and flawless skin, stared back at him, mocking him.

In this moment, Draco came to a crushing realization: he _was_ going to die. The Dark Lord would kill him in the most public and excruciatingly painful way possible. Draco was not a murderer, but that wouldn’t stop him from dying at the hands of one.

He curled his arm to his chest, willing his breath and heart to slow. After all, he only had so many left.

* * *

Draco closed his eyes and clutched the sink until his hands cramped, and then gripped it harder. The pain tethered him, kept him grounded, told him he was still alive.

“Don’t,” Moaning Myrtle crooned, floating above her toilet. “Don’t...tell me what’s wrong...I can help you…”

Hanging his head, Draco’s shoulders shook as another wave of sobs wracked his body. “No one can help me,” he rasped. Tears streamed from his eyes and down his cheeks, leaving streaks in the dingy porcelain below. “I can’t do it...I can’t...It won’t work...and unless I do it soon...he says he’ll kill me…”

 _I’m a pitiful, pathetic excuse for a wizard_ , Draco thought. His head and heart ached from the agony of the whole situation. Kill or be killed.

Gasping for air in an attempt to control his breakdown, he opened his eyes and released a shuddering exhale. His reflection in the fractured mirror revealed tear-stained cheeks, puffy red-rimmed eyes, and... _what the FUCK?_

He  wheeled around, drawing his wand  as a fit of temper he didn’t know he could possess swept over him. Saint-bloody-Potter had gone too far this time. Draco fired a _Flipendo_ jinx that missed its mark  by inches, shattering the lamp on the wall .

Potter dove to the side and flicked his wand.

 _No, you fucking don’t, Potter!_ Draco slashed his wand through the air, sending up a successful _Protego_ charm.

“No! No! Stop it!” squealed Moaning Myrtle, her voice echoing loudly around the tiled room. “Stop! STOP!” 

_As if I don’t have enough to worry about, this fucking prat will never leave me the fuck alone!_ Draco’s Stinging Jinx also missed its target and  the bin behind Harry exploded  with a loud bang.

He was too slow to shield a curse that  backfired off the wall behind  his ear and smashed the cistern beneath Moaning Myrtle. The ghost screamed and retreated into her toilet. Potter slipped and fell from the water pouring everywhere.

Blinded by fury, Draco cried, _“Cruci--”_

 _“EXPELLIARMUS!”_ bellowed Harry from the floor, waving his wand wildly.

Draco’s wand was ripped from his grasp, sailed in a high arch, and landed with a clatter on the soaked marble floor next to Potter.

“You fucking wanker!” Draco charged at Potter. Wand or no wand, the anger bottled inside him was in control now, and it wanted to break precious Potter’s perfect face.

Blood pounded in his ears, blocking all other thought and sound. He saw Potter’s mouth move and white light erupt from his wand tip, then Draco’s limbs slammed flush against his torso.

 _Shit!_ Draco thought, as his body started a slow fall forward.

The moment the Full Body-Bind Curse hit him, Draco expected to be choking on the blood pouring from a broken nose when he finally reached the floor. But Potter must have cast a Cushioning Charm under Draco because, to his shock, the floor did not smash his face when he landed. Even with the Cushioning Charm, Draco was still livid enough to hex Potter to Azkaban and back had he possessed any mobility.

A pair of gentle hands rolled him over and onto his back, then Scarface leaned into view. His expression was sombre and quiet; sadness clouded his features.

Under Potter’s penetrative, emerald gaze, Draco found his rage diminishing. His anger ebbed away to be replaced by apathy, temper weakened to the dull ache that followed him everywhere these days, until all the fire and fight left him.

Potter sat on the floor next to Draco. “Malfoy,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to intrude… or overhear… I… I’m sorry.”

Draco wished Potter would just knock him out, or kill him, or something. Anything to save him the torture of listening to this yammering.

“Is there anything… Can I…?” Potter took a breath, mouth set in a firm line. “I know you’re in trouble and I want to help you.”

If Draco had any motor control, then he would have rolled his eyes. As it was, he was stuck listening to Potter prattle on about things he knew nothing about.

“I know you have no reason to trust me or accept my help but… we’re just kids and this whole thing is fucking rubbish.”

_What?_

A muscle in Harry’s jaw twitched. “We’re just supposed to go along this path in which we had no choice… just blindly accept adults' decisions are the best for us… and it’s shite.”

_Yeah…_

“When was the last time you knew in your heart that you were doing what was right and best for you?”

_A long damn time!_

Harry stood. Draco could hear his pacing footsteps splash on the wet tile. “No offence, but you look terrible; you look like you haven’t eaten or slept in weeks.”

_No need to be insulting… he’s not wrong though._

“Meanwhile,” Harry continued his diatribe, “I’m just supposed to casually figure out how to kill Voldemort… that seems like a sensible task for a teenager.”

_Um…_

“At least --” Harry sighed and walked back into Draco’s line of sight, “-- at least my side doesn’t want to systematically destroy parts of our community.” He waved his wand over Draco’s body.

Draco relaxed but didn’t move. “You’re right… but you can’t help me. Just leave me alone, Potter.” He closed his eyes with a sad sigh.

Potter wasn’t leaving…

Right now Draco should be hearing feet clodding out of the room… 

Why wasn’t he leaving? 

Draco peeked one eye open. 

Raising a brow, Potter asked, “What do you have to lose?”

* * *

That damn day in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom… That was the reason Draco now found himself trailing Severus Snape through the corridors.

He had been studying in the library -- the Slytherin common room wasn’t the safest place for him these days -- when the fake Galleon in his pocket activated. After rushing to the Gryffindor common room entrance, he learned Potter and Dumbledore had left the castle. The stage seemed to be set for something, though none of them could guess what.

Draco knew very little of the Dark Lord’s plans apart from the mission he was given and subsequently abandoned. Lord Voldemort would not have put all of his ashwinder eggs in one fire nest, and Draco felt certain another scheme would have been set in motion after he defected to the Order.

While Hermione and Luna went to check on a supposedly collapsed Professor Flitwick, Draco set off at a safe distance behind the Potions professor. Potter claimed Snape was a double agent; Draco questioned where his true allegiance lay and therefore felt he could not be trusted.

Snape’s robes billowed behind him as he turned the corner of the Astronomy Tower corridor. Sounds of a battle -- yelling, screaming, explosions -- echoed louder with each step Draco took. He stopped at the corner, pressed his back against the wall, and inhaled a deep, steady breath. Shoving down the instinct to turn and run, he gripped his wand tightly and peeked one eye around the corner. The view that met him would have wilted the courage of the bravest Gryffindor.

Members of the DA and Order were scattered, each battling their own Death Eater. The crossfire of curses provided most of the light in the dim corridor. A sick feeling hit the pit of Draco’s stomach as he took in the sight of the still and bloody bodies of Longbottom and a Weasley, limbs at odd angles, lying motionless on the floor. One massive hooded figure shot jinxes with no concern for who or what he hit, resulting in half of the ceiling to fall in.

_Shit!_

Draco dove out of the way of the debris, covering his head as chunks of the stone wall the size of hippogriffs flew around him. After the dust settled, he picked up his head, surprised he was still in one piece.

“Well, well, well… What have we here?” a smooth voice spoke behind him.

An icy dread filled Draco’s chest. He slowly turned his head in the direction of the familiar voice, suppressing a shiver of fear.

Swallowing his rising panic, Draco schooled his features and sneered. “I thought you were in Azkaban, Father.”

“And I thought my son wasn’t a treacherous rat. Guess we both get to be disappointed.” His lip curled and he pointed his wand at Draco’s head. “Although, it will bring me great pleasure to return you to the Dark Lord myself.”

Cut off from the rest of the Hogwarts resistance, Draco knew he was on his own. His wand was underneath him, stabbing him in the side from when he fell. Firming his grasp of it, he readied himself for what his Father had in store.

Rolling away just in time, a hex left a large, smouldering burn mark on the floor where Draco had been lying seconds before. With his wand free, he blocked the next jinx that ricocheted and blasted a tapestry off the wall.

_Merlin, he’s pissed off._

Draco fired a _Flipendo_ at the same moment Lucius shot a purple hex. The two spells collided mid-air and threw both men back.

A ringing filled Draco’s ears. He rubbed his palm across the back of his head where it had slammed against the wall, finding a warm, wet, and sticky mess. A blurry Lucius towered above him.

“Shh, it’s alright,” Lucius purred. “You’re doing beautifully and I’m so proud of you. But that’s enough now. It was cruel of them to make you fight me -- you could never have won. It’s not your fault.”

“Fuck--” Draco coughed. “--you.”

A feminine voice shouted, “Hey! You pasty-faced, overgrown weasel!” 

Lucius nonchalantly turned.

Draco tried to focus on the fuzzy blob behind his Father… Fire-red haired female… _Ginny?_

“Get Malfucked!” Ginny shouted and blasted Lucius with a Bat-Bogey Hex.

With his father distracted by Ginny’s Hex, Draco seized the opportunity to hit the elder Malfoy with a Tempest Jinx. Lucius ran down the hall, away from Draco and Ginny, dodging flying bogeys and lightning bolts.

“Watch this,” Ginny said. She fired off a Trip Jinx and an _Orbis_ , causing Lucius to fall down and then be sucked through the floor.

Helping Draco stand, she added, “Let’s get you to the hospital wing. Everyone else is already there.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](https://sunflower-swan.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> XOXO


End file.
